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Italian bank Unicredit will give €50,000 to the creator of the best mobile banking app as part of Appathon 2015, which takes place in Milan, Munich and Vienna in November.

Other prizes include internship positions, software licenses and sponsorships, while participating teams will also be eligible to work with Unicredit Start Lab, an initiative that provides support for Italian startups.

The event, which will take place over a 24-hour period from November 7th, is aimed at generating new ideas and prototypes that make financial services more efficient as well as accelerating the company’s digital banking services.

More than 300 contenders are expected to take part in the event, which will be held simultaneously at the company’s offices in Milan, Munich and Vienna.

“Our competitors are becoming more diverse because new technology is making it possible for new players to boldly enter our core banking market,” Paolo Fiorentino, COO and Deputy CEO of UniCredit said in a statement.

“This is why we have to look beyond the usual approaches to banking and think like innovators, constantly reevaluating our processes and offering cutting-edge products and services that will appeal to young professionals and students.”

This is the second year the event has taken place, with the first leading to the creation of Prelievo Smart, or 'Smart Withdrawal', a new function on the group’s mobile banking app that lets customers withdraw cash from ATMs using a smartphone or QR code rather than a bank card.

Following the success of the first Appathon, which took the form of two smaller national competitions in Italy and in Germany, UniCredit decided to extend this year’s event to Austria.

Participants will develop apps for the bank's main markets, grappling with the broad challenges that the banking industry faces in its drive to provide comprehensive, intuitive digital services.

Registration for the event is open until October 25th. In Vienna the hackathon takes place at the Unicredit Center am Kaiserwasser.